Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Resources

Below you’ll find suggested online and print resources for information on copyright and other intellectual property issues. The resources found on this page are not meant to offer legal advice but rather to guide and inform as you investigate copyright and other intellectual property concerns.

General-Interest Resources

Although detailed, this guide provides basic information on the legal concept of copyright, focusing on U.S. copyright law. The guide defines terminology, explains who can claim copyright, relates which works are protected and which are not under copyright, plus many other key points to help better understand copyright and author’s rights.

The Office of the General Counsel (OGC) of the University of Pittsburgh provides legal services and advice to the Pitt community. OGC services include reviewing and preparing university contracts and agreements, representing the university in legal proceedings, and providing legal advice to the university community.

The official website for U.S. Copyright Law provides the full text of the nation’s copyright law, news on proposed copyright legislation, basic information (including circulars and forms) on copyright, and answers to frequently asked questions.

You can also search copyright records and learn how to register the copyright for a work you’ve created.

This portal to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provides resources for patents, trademarks, intellectual property law and policy, and much more.

Here you can do patent and trademark searches; find information for inventors, musicians, and artists; and get answers to frequently asked questions about patents, trademarks, and other industrial property topics.

Law and Policy

University of Pittsburgh Policies

This page links to additional Pitt policies on copyright and intellectual property. Here you’ll find information about patent rights; the use of university names, logos, and trademarks; a checklist for Pitt webpages; and guidelines on research data management at Pitt.

U.S. Law and Policy

A U.S. government resource provided via the Library of Congress, Congress.gov lets you search federal legislation, such as the full text of bills, congressional committee activities, votes, and more. You can find more information about copyright and other intellectual property legislation by doing a quick keyword search on "copyright" or "intellectual property." You can do an advanced search using the legislative subject term "intellectual property" to retrieve relevant federal legislation.

An amendment to U.S. copyright law, passed in 1998, that sought to address copyright concerns in the digital environment. Among its many provisions, the DMCA prohibited the circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) technologies that control access to copyrighted works.

The text of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is incorporated into Appendix B of the U.S. Copyright Law.

TEACH redefines the terms and conditions on which accredited, nonprofit educational institutions throughout the U.S. may use copyright protected materials in distance education – including on websites and by other digital means – without permission from the copyright owner and without payment of royalties.

International and Non-U.S. Law and Policy

Here you’ll find the full text of the International Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Also known as the Berne Convention, this is an international agreement wherein member countries guarantee the protections of rights granted to its own nationals to creators who originally published in a different country.

Written by Pitt School of Information Sciences professor and lawyer Kip Currier, PhD, JD. Dr. Currier gathers and comments on current happenings in copyright, open access, open data, open education, fair use, and more.

The SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources) news site covers U.S. and international developments in Open Access, scholarly communication and publishing, and copyright legislation and policy, among others.

Beyond Copyright

Creative Commons enables creators to apply copyright terms to their works in a way that allows creators to give others a way to use, build upon, and share creative works while still getting credit. There are multiple licenses that can be applied which make the content of works more compatible with the activities and communication on the Internet.

Copyleft creates a method for making a software program or other work free, with the caveat that all other versions of that program are to be free as well. This ensures that the software will not become proprietary and that changes and modifications can be made to software.

Authored by lawyer and copyright expert Stephen Fishman, this book describes everything from art to choreography that can be found in the public domain, including how to find whether it is in the public domain and what to do with international works.

Developed by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), the Author Addendum is designed to help authors secure their rights to journal articles. The addendum is a legal tool used by authors to modify the publisher agreement, allowing them to keep key rights to their articles (such as archiving, redistribution, and more).

Part of the University of Texas Libraries' Copyright Crash Course, this resource provides more detailed information about the doctrine of fair use and how to apply its principles to works that you want to use. One excellent point that it makes is that some works--such as many U.S. government publications, works in the public domain, facts, and idea--are not protected under copyright law, so you may already able to use them.

This circular from the U.S. Copyright Office provides some guidelines and definitions on the amount of a work teachers can copy without permission under fair use. (See the section titled “Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-For-Profit Educational Institutions With Respect to Books and Periodicals.”)

Keep in mind these guidelines are aimed at educators and librarians, but they may provide a good rule of thumb for others using copyrighted materials.

A quick guide to the four factors of fair use. The guide highlights common concerns, issues to consider, and misconceptions that often arise while trying to determine whether use of copyrighted materials is a fair one.

An online tool for--you guessed it!--helping you think through whether your intended use of copyrighted material is fair, according to U.S. copyright law. This tool doesn't give you a yes or no answer or provide legal advice; instead, it helps you organize your thoughts so that you can decide whether your use is fair or whether you need to seek permission to use a copyrighted work.

A searchable database of works registered and documents recorded by the U.S. Copyright Office since January 1, 1978. Keep in mind that under U.S. law, a work does not have to be registered or include a copyright notice to be consider copyrighted.

Reusable Works (Works in the Public Domain, Copyright-Free, or with Copyright-Flexible Licenses)

In addition to providing licenses that allow more flexible use of works, this Creative Commons page provides quick links to resources for copyright-free, copyright-flexible, and Creative Commons-licensed works, including images, videos, music, and other media.

Many of the images, maps, documents, and video and audio recordings available online from the Library of Congress (sometimes referred to as the American Memory collections) are in the public domain or have copyright terms that allow reuse without permission. Check the individual collections and images for copyright terms.

This 2014 report to the College Art Association identifies some of the confusion and misunderstanding over copyright law and fair use that visual artists and visual arts professionals (including art historians, professors, editors, publishers, and others) experience in creating and circulating their works. This confusion may result in fear and anxiety, which may lead artists and professionals to constrain and censor themselves.

From the findings of this report, the College Art Association plans to develop a code of best practices for fair use by visual artists and visual arts professionals.

This interactive tool is designed to help you assess the intellectual property status of an image that documents a work of art, a designed object, or a portion of the built environment so that you can make an informed decision about the educational use of the image.

In addition to resources such as the Digital Image Rights Computator, the Copy Photography Computator, and the Visual Resources Association's Statement on Fair Use of Images, the Visual Resources Association provides a lengthy list of copyright and other intellectual property resources for visual artists. These include guidance on scholarly uses of images; copyright in educational settings; and information on U.S., Canadian, and international copyright laws.